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Definition of McGuffin in US English:

McGuffin

noun

An object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.

‘the McGuffin in this intriguing comedy is an unpublished novel by a young writer killed in the war’

‘Truthfully, the translation aspect is a McGuffin, a way for Kelman to ease the reader into his language lab without realising it.’

‘Seems to me like the blindness is a McGuffin, just brought up to generate suspense for that one sequence, then dropped as if the audience is just going to forget about it.’

‘I named it after Alfred Hitchock's description of his plot device, a McGuffin, that every character in the story searches for believing it will solve their problem.’

‘Although this plot motivation is not much more than one of Hitchcock's famous McGuffins, it is a McGuffin that strongly hints at the U.S. government's illegal incursions into foreign parts of the globe.’

‘Serleena seeks a McGuffin known as ‘the light,’ the details of which are fairly inconsequential - save that the Earth will be destroyed if it's not removed from the planet before the last five minutes of the movie.’

‘A lot of science fiction writers just use the scientific element as a McGuffin, to make the plot go forward.’

‘And the reporter turns out to be a McGuffin, a possible problem that never manifests itself.’

‘So if the mystery plot is really just a McGuffin, what is Fuller really trying to accomplish by setting the story in this mental asylum?’

‘Both books feature a McGuffin, which is a term invented, I think, by Alfred Hitchock.’

Origin

1930s: a Scottish surname, coined in this sense by the English film director Alfred Hitchcock, allegedly from a humorous story involving such a pivotal factor.